In early October, when a single mortar shell launched from Syria missed its target and reached Turkey’s borders, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, was enraged.
In referring to the mere possibility of an attack launched from within Syria, Erdogan declared, “If there is a terror operation, if an irritant, emerges, then intervention would be our most natural right.”
And just this last month, when terrorists from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) launched a series of attacks against Turkish targets, Prime Minister Erdogan swiftly utilized his “right” to respond. When he was done, in the space of just over a couple weeks, 500 Kurds had been killed.
Why, then, is Erdogan not willing to cede similar rights to Israel after she is relentlessly attacked by Hamas?
Consider the depth of hypocrisy here. As of Monday morning, by the time Israel finally responded to the recent rounds of Hamas’ attacks, they had already sustained over 850 jihadi rocket attacks launched into Israel. While the Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile batteries were able to effectively shoot down over 300 rockets heading straight for Israeli neighborhoods, a few dozen were able to penetrate the Iron Dome, landing in civilian areas.
Last week, when one of these missiles penetrated the roof of a family home in Kiryat Malachi (a sister city to Los Angeles) three Israelis were killed.
Surely Israel would now possess the same “right” to respond that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has so forcefully claimed and used himself to defend his own country. One would think. But what is clear is that in Erdogan, we are not dealing with a rational player.
Consider just a few of Erdogan’s rabidly delusional anti-Semitic comments made over just the past few days.
As if not a single missile had ever been launched from Gaza, Erdogan has placed all blame on Israel for the latest round of fighting. In a scene taken directly from some bizarro-world comic book, Erdogan angrily pointed his finger at the camera and declared, “It’s a tactic of Israel’s to point the finger at Hamas and attack Gaza.”
Even more absurdly, in defending Hamas, Erdogan referred to Israel as “a terrorist nation.”
Instead of acknowledging Israel’s legitimate right to respond to the unprovoked and relentless aggression of Hamas, while visiting Egypt this weekend, Erdogan made the following overt threat: “Israel must pay a price for its aggression and crimes.”
To the roars of an enthusiastic crowd at Cairo University, Erdogan went on to denounce Israel on every level while belittling the Israeli lives lost. “Israel continues to make an international racket with its three dead,” he said.
Erdogan also praised his fellow Islamist brother, Egypt President Mohamed Morsi, for recalling Egypt’s ambassador from Tel Aviv.
And at a meeting with Arab foreign ministers, Erdogan skirted close to actually beating the drums of war:
“We pledge to the Palestinians in Gaza and everywhere to provide support to confront this aggression and break the siege. … Everyone must know that sooner or later there will be a holding to account for the massacre of these innocent children killed inhumanely in Gaza.”
Of course, it is now a well-known fact, and should be to their great shame before the world, that Hamas has specifically placed many of its missile batteries and assets in close proximity to playgrounds, schools, mosques and residential neighborhoods.
Sadly, this is a well-documented and common tactic of Islamic terrorists who both understand the value Israel’s military places on Palestinian civilian life, as well as much of the Western media’s complicity in misrepresenting Israel to the world.
Just this weekend, both the BBC and CNN were caught utilizing bogus Hamas propaganda in its anti-Israel reporting. First, they were caught using fraudulent footage of a “wounded” Palestinian man. The images are seen below:
Then, CNN’s Sara Sidner reported from Gaza concerning a Palestinian child who was killed by a missile. The problem is that although Hamas has literally been parading the corpse of this child around for the media, declaring him to be a martyr and victim of Israeli aggression, all evidence now points to the fact his death was the result of a botched Hamas rocket attack directed at Israel – “friendly fire.”
By placing its various military targets in close proximity to schools, playgrounds and mosques, Hamas is actively seeking the death of its own people to use for its own propaganda purposes. It may be over 50 years later, but Golda Meir’s words continue to ring out as true as ever: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” It is obvious that this time has not yet come.
And at the head of the parade of propaganda is PM Erdogan, who continues to rail against Israel and her “massacre of children” – which of course begs the question that none seem to have asked Erdogan: Of the 500 Kurds killed last month by Turkey’s military, how many were women or children? Despite the Turkish media’s fear of their own government, Erdogan’s must be called out for his hypocrisy, anti-Semitism and shameful comments.
By leading the effort to spread demonstrable lies, Erdogan is embarrassing his own people and nation, making himself into the hateful jester of the Middle East. Instead of behaving like the emerging regional leader he seeks to be, Erdogan is acting like so many of the other clownish Islamists to whom he is now choosing to associate himself.
Consider the outright lunacy of the Hamas media machine. Over the past few days, announcers on TV in Gaza have triumphantly asserted the following to its viewers:
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Hamas missiles have hit the Knesset;
Tel Aviv is being deeply bombarded;
Tel Aviv’s electrical grid has been destroyed;
Ben Gurion International Airport has been shut down and all flights have been redirected to secret military bases;
An IAF F-16 has been shot down.
The appeal to laughable exaggeration, propaganda, conspiracy theories and lies that has often characterized the Islamist worldview is once again surfacing, not only in Hamas’ media but also on the lips of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan.
Welcome to the anti-Semitic and irrational worldview of President Obama’s closest confidant, ally and best friend in the region. Welcome to the bizarro world of being Jewish in a region where Islamists now dominate, where only Muslims truly possess rights. Welcome to the triumph of democracy in the land of Islam. Welcome to the new Middle East.
Finally, please pray that in the days to come, those who genuinely seek truth, peace and justice will triumph over the growing army of those who foment demagoguery, lies, hatred and injustice.
16 Responses
when i was in afghan, loads of times they’d use mosques as firing positions. There were also two contacts I can remember in which women and children were used to shield the Taliban.
– so i can well believe they’re doing the same in Gaza.
Thank you, Joel, for speaking so courageously, pointing out Erdogans hypocrisy. We can all see how the Middle East is being unified against Israel, and how the climate for a ‘saviour’ like the Mahdi is being created. If there was ever a time to speak up, it is now. Hoping that some people will remember when precisely that will happen what you have been telling for years.
God bless you, Micha.
“I have heard the taunting of Moab
And the revilings of the sons of Ammon,
With which they have taunted My people
And become arrogant against their territory.
9 “Therefore, as I live,” declares the Lord of hosts,
The God of Israel,
“Surely Moab will be like Sodom
And the sons of Ammon like Gomorrah—
A place possessed by nettles and salt pits,
And a perpetual desolation.
The remnant of My people will plunder them
And the remainder of My nation will inherit them.”
10 This they will have in return for their pride, because they have taunted and become arrogant against the people of the Lord of hosts.
11 The Lord will be terrifying to them, for He will starve all the gods of the earth; and all the coastlands of the nations will bow down to Him, everyone from his own place.
12 “You also, O Ethiopians {Sudan}, will be slain by My sword.”
13 And He will stretch out His hand against the north
And destroy Assyria,
And He will make Nineveh a desolation,
Parched like the wilderness.
14 Flocks will lie down in her midst,
All beasts which range in herds;
Both the pelican and the hedgehog
Will lodge in the tops of her pillars;
Birds will sing in the window,
Desolation will be on the threshold;
For He has laid bare the cedar work.
15 This is the exultant city
Which dwells securely,
Who says in her heart,
“I am, and there is no one besides me.”
How she has become a desolation,
A resting place for beasts!
Everyone who passes by her will hiss
And wave his hand in contempt.
Zeph 2:8-15
This is one Canadian who continues to maintain that NATO isn’t big enough for Canada & Turkey. One has to leave.
That, by itself, presumably will not result in much – but a meaningful precedent for the future will have been the result.
Great insight. Thanks for the post!
Joel, thank you for shining the light on what needs the light of scrutiny applied to.
One of the books I have at home is Vixi: The Memoirs of a Non-belonger, which is the auto-biography of Richard Pipes.
The following passage started on page 199 of the hard cover edition, and ended on page 200.
I daresay there are lessons in it that are applicable for today, & the future, because of the evidence of 14 centuries of wreckage, amongst other things as to why the Anti-Christ, and the False Prophet, will fail:
It was originally intended that the President address the House of Commons at Westminster, the seat of Parliament, and such was the proposal of Prime Minister Thatcher. But local opposition prevented this – the English elite regarded Reagan as a dangerous simpleton – and he had to settle for the setting of the less prestigious Royal Gallery in the House of Lords. Although initially he had told us he would not agree to “second best,” he took this mean-spirited rebuff in good humour. “In an ironic sense Karl Marx was right,” Reagan said in the speech he delivered on June 8, 1982:
We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union….What we see here is a political structure that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a society where productive forces are hampered by political ones.
The London speech infuriated the Russians more than anything Reagan has said or done since taking office. They realized full well its implications: that the USSR was, in Marxist terms, facing inevitable collapse and hence was not a power whose interests had to be taken into account, or with which it was worth the trouble to negotiate.
this isnt to do with this post, but a question nonetheless about the feast of tabernacles mentioned in Zech 14, right at the end when Jesus comes. I was quite surprised when I read this – also mentioned in Is 19 is that Egypt, after being delievered from the “cruel master”, will go up to jerusalem and “make oblation”. I was surprised, but if its in the Word, its in the Word.
I pointed this out to someone, who immediately refused to acknowledge that that was the correct interpretation because it was “too Jewish”, and also that there is no need for any sacrifices since Jesus was THE sacrifice, and that any suggestion that sacrifices would continue in the future would be heresy. I mentioned that not all sacrifices are to do with atonement (Gen 15:9), and that the feast of Tabernacles is memorial in nature, sort of like Armistice Day, a day to remember an event.
Having said that, I thought I’d check with other people….Am I right in saying that the Feast of Tabernacles is going to be “reinstated” during Jesus’ reign? What about my friend’s point about no more sacrifices are needed?
The Feast of Tabernacles is the feast that celebrates, among other things, God dwelling among us and in our midst. Ezekiel 40-45 also makes it clear that during the millennium, there will indeed be sacrifices, and at least some of the feasts will be celebrated. Those who say that because Jesus is the final sacrifice, honoring the feasts today is wrong, are actually in danger of inferring that before him, salvation was attained through sacrifice. Jesus has always been the only means of salvation, both before and after his death. If someone celebrates the feasts today, they do so in remembrance of what Jesus has done or in looking forward to what he will do in the future. As for Temple sacrifices, there were many reasons for these, one of which is to become ritually clean to serve in the Temple. Ultimately, we will not know until he comes and teaches the nations. Now, I will add that while this reality is sure, the effort to demand that everyone today, including gentiles, must thus celebrate every feast and make effort to uphold the whole of the Torah according to the letter, is entirely unbiblical. Yes, we are to uphold the spirit of Torah, which has always been their true intention. Acts 15 and so many other passages throughout the Epistles are clear on this issue.
thanks….I said as much about the Feasts, that they dont necessarily have to do with salvation, to which he asked why then are there sacrifices?
To which I (a bit lamely) said, “I guess God likes sacrifices”. Like you said, ultimately we dont know until He comes. Until then I put it down to another thing I dont understand, but if its in the Word, its in the Word and I’m inclined to believe thats what will happen and be taught by the Lord why.
Sharia forbids a Jew to hit back if hit by a Muslim. The punishment for that is death. The only allowed course of action for a bitten up Jew/dhimmi is to lodge a complaint with the Islamic Sharia court – where his word is of course worth half that of a Muslim – even that one which has attacked him.
Jews are denied right of self-defense by Sharia.
So Erdogan’s bahaviour is strictly Sharia-compliant. Like a lot of British banking these days.
The Lord fulfilled the first 4 Feasts at His first coming: Passover on the 14th day of Nisan (our Mar/Apr), Unleavened Bread the 15th, Rose from the grave on First fruits the 16th day of the month, and showed up in person (3rd person) in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. We are now living between Pentecost and the memorial of blowing of Trumpets,(our Sep/Oct). The ten days between “Trumpets,” (1st of Tishri) and the day of Atonement, (10th day of Tishri)are know as “the days of Awe” in which “the books are opened.” In Daniel 7:10 we see that the Ancient of Days has come and, “The books are opened.” The Day of Atonement is seen in Rev. 8:3-5 with the ceremony of this Day of Atonement being performed, (e.g., Lev. 16:12,13. The Feast of Tabernacles or “Feast of INGATHERING,” (Ex 23:16, 34:22) is also found in Zechariah, (a clear 2nd coming passage)as occuring next. There can be no doubt that Christ will fulfill the last three “Appointed Times of the Lord, (Moed)at his second coming to earth. We can expect the Lord to return in our Sep/Oct time frame.
Given that the Mahdi, or Anti-christ, is as far as you can get from http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2012/11/was-saint-feodor-of-tomsk-really.html It would not surprise me to see this take place:
Turkey loses access to the Aegean Sea via the prophecy of the Elder Paisos of Mount Athos.
When this is combined with Egypt, the Sudan, and Libya, concluding that they can be more powerful combined, than what each can achieve on their own – The old Selucid Empire looks at them with jealous eyes (especially when more oil is produced from Libya and the Sudan, than from Iraq) – and goes to war.
Hamas has never been shy about its use of human shields. This video is from the timeframe of the 2008-09 Casting Lead operations. Nothing has changed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEUgUtGAmrY
I really enjoyed reading this article. Keep up the good work and keep us informed of the situation in Turkey.
Great article Joel.
The depth of irrational hatred for Israel can only be understood in the light of the spiritual battle taking place in the Middle – East. One wonders how close we are to the second coming of Jesus, but the increasingly depressing state of the world makes me desire it sooner than later. God bless. Mark.